(MKTG 347) Week 2 - Social Media Introduction

The book Casa Marketing: Intro to Social Media Marketing by Todd Kelsey is very informative and provides a solid introduction to social media marketing. The first chapter discusses how to have fun with social media and possibly even get a social media job. The first topic that is brought up is ROI, or return on investment. It is important to understand that social media needs to have a purpose when used in a business setting. Money spent on social media needs to be measured and the impact recorded. Understanding whether a social media strategy is effective or not can help reduce costs in the long run. 

Another topic discussed in chapter one is engagement. Customer engagement through the use of the internet has grown significantly. Kelsey talks about how engaging your customer using relevant content and interesting promotions can really make the difference between a successful digital marketing plan and an ineffective one. While it is crucial to engage your customer you also need to make sure that all that 'engaging'  that is going on is leading to sales for the business or at least potential sales. Kelsey makes an extremely valid point when he says that social media is not just about posting but it is also about listening. Not only do you need to post and engage with happy customers but also with angry or frustrated customers. Negative publicity can damage a company's reputation so it is important to monitor what is being said about the business online.

A chart in chapter one actually showed the top social networking sites as of January 2014. I was not at all surprised to find that Facebook was number one on the list, however I was surprised to find that YouTube was number two on the list, surpassing Twitter. Obviously a video channel, YouTube, may not make sense for some companies but there are so many other ways to utilize YouTube that can benefit many different types of businesses. It will be interesting to see how these trends change over the years and whether or not new social media sites take over Facebook's number one spot. 

Citation: Kelsey, Todd. CASA Marketing: Intro to Social Media Marketing. RGB Press. 2015. Print.